archives

May 5 – 11, 2014

Date: May 11, 2014

May 6: Girls School damaged in Bannu blast
A state-run girl’s school was severely damaged when an improvised explosive device planted on-site went off. The attack was the latest in the scores of schools destroyed by militants in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in 2014 alone. The News  
 
May 6: Dogs set loose on polio vaccination worker
A young woman working on the polio vaccine campaign was critically injured when she was severely bitten by dogs set loose on her Dera Ismail Khan. The victim was going visiting houses to administer vaccination drops against the polio virus to children  when local men had trained dogs attack her. The Nation
 
May 7: Prominent Human Rights Activist Rashid Rehman killed in Multan

Prominent lawyer and human right’s activist Rashid Rehman was brutally gunned down in his office in Multan. Rashid Rehman had been repeatedly receiving death threats for his decision to defend a professor accused of blasphemy. Gunmen broke into Rehman’s office Katechri Road office and opened fire, killing him on the spot as well as injuring two others. Mr. Rehman was head of the Multan chapter of the Human Right Commission, which had alerted security authorities of the threats to his life. The HRCP later commented that their warnings were not heeded and that the police remained indifferent to the threat. The News 

May 8: Shopkeeper jailed in Karachi blasphemy case

A sessions court in Karachi sentenced a man to life imprisonment under the blasphemy law. Malik Mohammad Farooq was found guilty of tearing up a banner which was inscribed with the name of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) and various holy verses. The accused claimed that he was being framed under blasphemy accusations owing to a dispute he had with the management of a mosque located next to his shop. However, the court ruled that the accused did not produce any evidence to substantiate his claim. Dawn

May 8: School damaged by militant attack in Bajaur 

Unidentified militants blew up a government school in the Kamangra area of Bajaur Agency. According to eyewitnesses, a group of armed men entered the building of the school during the night and planted several explosive devices, which they later detonated. Members of the local village defence committee reached the spot soon after the incident and opened fire on the militants, but they managed to escape. Over 110 state built schools have been destroyed in the Bajaur agency, according to local figures. Dawn

May 9: Sectarian tensions grip Digri

Clashes between the hardliner Ahle Sunnah Wal Jamaat (ASWJ) and the Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen (MWM) in Digri led to the deployment of police and rangers personnel in several localities of the district. The clashes had been provoked over the removal of banners hung by both sides. Dawn